Category Archives: NYQ

On Saturday 29th July 2017 Nottingham Young Quakers marched together in the Nottinghamshire Pride Parade 2017. This was a great opportunity for minority orientation, gender identity and intersex (MOGII) NYQs and their allies to celebrate the progress that has been made towards acceptance and legal equality for MOGII people in the UK* and show solidarity with those around the world who still suffer discrimination, persecution or worse because of who they are.

We arrived well-equipped for the celebrations, with placards, ‘Queer and Quaker’ themed clothing, rainbow face paint, various pride flags, a bubble machine and temporary tattoos of the official Quaker Pride Q (shout-out to to Nikolas Dadson for making the Pride Q a reality)!

I had designed the clothing and badges in consultation with other NYQs to include the colours of various pride flags (a fairly comprehensive guide can be found here)**. We chose to use the ‘more color more pride’ rainbow to show our appreciation for the queer people of colour who were at the forefront of the original pride movement and our solidarity with those who continue to experience racism within the queer community today. These designs were sold through a print-to-order website and the £34 profit I made from selling these products to NYQs (including myself!) will be donated to ReachOUT Leeds, a support charity for LGBT+ refugees and asylum seekers in the UK. It is hoped that in the future I will be able to make these designs available to other queer-identifying Quakers.

The weather was warm and the atmosphere was friendly. Indeed, I must have been giving off some kind of particularly friendly and helpful vibe because as we were forming up I was approached by a complete stranger asking if they could borrow my pansexual pride flag for a performance they were doing at the end of the parade! Of course I agreed, and near the end of the march I split off from the rest of the NYQs to make my way to the stage.

The person I spoke to turned out to be part of a group called Nottingham BiTopia (Facebook, Twitter) who were giving a performance entitled ‘The Bisexuality Briefing’. Unfortunately I can find no recordings of the performance online, but the key focus was on debunking many of the myths surrounding bisexuality and people who are bisexual or otherwise don’t fit neatly into the gay/straight dichotomy. If you’d like to know more, the GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) website has an article addressing some of the myths to get you started. They also spoke about bi erasure, which Wikipedia says “is the tendency to ignore, remove, falsify, or reexplain evidence of bisexuality in history, academia, the news media, and other primary sources.” This would include, for example, referring to the event we attended as gay pride, since that ignores the fact that many people there identified as bi/pansexual.

As I was waiting to collect my flag I was approached by the Lord Mayor of Nottingham, who started talking to me about the history of Quakers in Nottingham! At this point I had forgotten that I had the word QUAKER both emblazoned across my t-shirt and stuck to my face, so I was quite at a loss as to how he knew I was a Quaker! I did my best to make small talk (not my forte!) and then excused myself to join the rest of the NYQs at Wagamama.

On Wednesday 21st June with the Refugee Crisis still continuing, Nottingham Quakers hosted a free public event to explore what work people and organisations are doing to support refugees. We invited representatives from various organisations who work supporting refugees. They attended to explain what work they do, the challenges they face and what we in Nottingham can do to help.

We had representation from:

Nottingham Arimathea Trust – A local charity who provides housing and support for people who have had their first claim for asylum refused.

Quaker Peace and Social Witness – Rooted in the convictions of Peace, Justice, Equality and Community; Quakers across Britain are working to welcome people seeking sanctuary.

ShareWear – a local charity involved in offering free clothing and bedding to those in crisis.

The Rainbow Project – a non-profit organisation working in partnership with the Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham set up in 2001 to support to asylum-seekers and refugees in the Nottingham area.

Derbyshire Refugee Solidarity – part of a grassroots movement working to provide aid and support to refugees. Since they started out in August 2015 they have been involved in several convoys delivering vital aid to refugee camps in Europe.

Student Action for Refugees (STAR) – a national charity of 26,000 students who volunteer, campaign, fundraise and educate people on matters around refugees and asylum seekers. In Nottingham they run conversation classes for refugees and asylum seekers.

Nottingham & Nottinghamshire Refugee Forum – is an independent voluntary organisation and registered charity set up in 2000 to work with and for refugees and asylum seekers in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire offering practical advice, information, support and friendship.

Host Nottingham – a local organisation who aims to provide a referral into accommodation for destitute asylum seekers. They request hosts to provide basic accommodation for a destitute asylum seeker from a week to three months.

During the evening the representatives gave a short talk on what they do and highlighted their current challenges. Afterwards the real work began as everyone had the opportunity to discuss options for facing these challenges together. Organisations and individuals were able to start forging connections moving towards greater impact and we were able to secure funding for teaching Refugees and Asylum Seekers English! Since Nottingham Quakers agreed to becoming a Sanctuary Meeting in August we will all be able to come together to help further support events like these.

As soon as we were given the option to pick a U- or PG-rated film for our all-ages film night, it was a clear and easy decision – The Prince of Egypt (was there really an option?!). There had been a debate – should we sing along, can we hum, and what about interruptions? None of this mattered in the end!

The film, if you haven’t seen it, is an incredible, beautifully animated re-telling of Exodus, where Moses leads the Israelites from Egypt. We joked at the beginning about how this film is a religious as we’ve ever got; it’s a particular childhood favourite of mine, and includes the more distressing aspects of Exodus with some incredible mid-90s animation. Tori and I reflected that this story is not particularly PG-friendly, as though there is no blood, some aspects of the story are harrowing, including the deaths of the first borns, mass slaughter, and plagues… The children who attended did not appear to be as distressed as us, however!

I think the film is a brilliant way to introduce children (and adults) to parts of the Old Testament without it being too dry or challenging – we can always engage with music and colour, and the film does both well. The story of Exodus is well known, and though the film deviates somewhat from the Biblical text, it’s still a thought provoking and accessible film. The soundtrack is full of soaring lullabies, strong group choruses, and some wonderful Hebrew singing, “Ashira l’Adonai ki gaoh gaah”, translated as ‘I will sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously’.

Our bring and share dinner was delicious as always, which included some nice additions from our more adventurous guests, homemade pizza with peach, a vegan bean chilli, and rhubarb and crème fraîche. Though I love cooking with the rest of NYQ, I always really enjoy bring and share meals with the rest of the Quaker community, as I feel it allows us to share both food and time with each other so that we know each other more individually.

Jaz

After a lovely start to our evening watching The Prince of Egypt and sharing a wonderful bring and share supper with some fellow Friends, we settled down to enjoy our second film of the evening (Warm Bodies), a romance orientated comedy thriller, a genre which admittedly I had never previously thought existed. As the opening credits rolled, silence descended, not only due to the impending beginning of the film, but due to the prior distribution of ice lollies to everyone in the room which they were now keenly tucking into.

What followed proved to be an entertaining and surprisingly thought provoking movie, with undeniable parallels to the old Shakespearian classic of Romeo and Juliet (not least of all the naming of the main characters being ‘Julie’ and ‘R’). The film explored issues of identity, acceptance, discrimination and segregation, through the physical and emotional struggles between the dehumanised ‘zombie’ race and the human characters in the film. It ended on a light hearted note however with the two sides uniting against a common foe with love and unity prevailing. All in all we had a very enjoyable and somewhat thought provoking evening in each other’s company.